Courses: Auditing

Last updated: August 1, 2018

Policy

If you audit a course, you attend classes, you may complete assignments and take exams (this is up to each instructor), but you are not given a final grade. Instead, a grade of AD (audited) is submitted by the instructor at the end of the semester. The course does not count for credit. If you stop attending an audited course, the instructor can issue a notation of "WA" (withdrawn from audited course). You can also withdraw from an audited course through your academic dean's office (with a "WA" ).

There are only a few circumstances where an audit is useful. These include:

if you want to explore an area unrelated to your major and the course is outside of your primary interests;

if you want a review of an area you are already knowledgeable in, or;

if a course is of particular interest but would require an extraordinary effort for you to take for a grade along with your other planned courses.

You cannot repeat for credit a course previously audited at Duke or at another college or university. Therefore, you should be sure not to audit (at Duke or elsewhere) any course that you might later need for a major, minor, or certificate, or as a prerequisite for postgraduate study (e.g., medical school).

Once you are enrolled in a course for regular credit, you cannot change it to an audit once the drop/add deadline has passed. Similarly, after drop/add, a course taken on an audit basis may not be changed to a course for regular credit. However, you may audit a class that you have previously completed on a graded basis. You may not audit physical education, studio art, applied music, dance technique, or performance courses. You should also not audit a foreign language course if you are planning to fulfill the foreign language requirement in that language and there is any reason to believe that you may need to take that course for credit. Courses taken on an audit basis fulfill no curricular requirements.

Note: an audited course is counted as part of your course load. You may enroll in no more than 4.5 credits in addition to a 1.0 credit audited course. Audited courses are also counted toward the total credit limit of 6.0 that no student may exceed, and toward the maximum of 2.5 credits for seniors who wish to be part-time in their final semester. Please note further that if authorized to enroll in an underload (see course load) a student may not include an audited course among the credits that comprise the underload.

Procedure

In order to register as an auditor in a course you must obtain written, signed permission from the instructor. You must submit the Permission Form to the Registrar's Office by 5 p.m. on the last day of drop/add. The Registrar's Office strictly enforces this deadline.